My writing is from my scattered thoughts, but often come accompanied by my experience about who we are. This is about a mother who feels when her son is young and older and tries to make things better for her child.
It sure was a gift to have my son Sanjay, born here (in the USA) after a long time. We had two children born in India and then we migrated to the USA. I was only 20 yr. old and had two children. When I got pregnant with Sanjay, I was mature enough to know what motherhood means and how much work is involved to be a mom without the support of my extended family. I had family members to help me when my two older children were born.
I felt love and pride in having Sanjay born here. At the same time, I was fearful of Sanjay growing up as a brown boy. It always compelled me to think about how his life will be here. As a first-generation immigrant mother, I struggled with the thought of just how much he will face the ugliness and unfairness that is encountered by many young children because of their color. I was also joyful thinking of the opportunity he would have grown up here. In public school, he can play any sports and take music lessons free as a boy. No need to be born rich to have all these extra activities like in India when we were growing up. So I hoped for the best and kept exposing him to various activities like playing sports and taking part in the orchestra with the study.
I trusted that everything will be O.K if I can just do my best and tell him about his heritage. I tried to tell him the reason we migrated to this vibrant land and kept an intact, loving family around him. I have always used the art of storytelling or passing down information, knowledge, and wisdom in creative ways that helped him to know about our heritage, culture, and the country where we came from. I have used stories to pass on knowledge and advice on how to live an honest and better life. It reminds me of a story I used to tell him when he played the position of goalkeeper in soccer (football in the rest of the world) from the age of 4 till he was in high school. When little Sanjay started playing, he often asked me who I know played goalkeeper position as an example. I never played or saw many sports growing up back home. I had no one but to pull out the names from our mythology character dear monkey God Hanuman and Bhimsen. Hanuman is the supreme keeper who saved many obstacles from difficult situations in our Hindu scripture and always remains strong with his hand as the goalkeeper must in a soccer game. Somehow Sanjay liked my story and always prayed to Hanuman before he starts at the goal post in a game.
Bhimsen is a character in our scripture Mahabharat who is well known for his passion. He was big and strong as a child and an adult. He was passionate about food. He often found a way to reach out to the food even in darkness. His hands used to reach where the food was kept even in darkness. I told the story to Sanjay how Lord Bhimsen could find food in dark without light in the dark kitchen. So the key for him was to do things where he has passion and it will be easily done. This way he will do things with joy rather than being compelled to do.. We also talked to be strong by eating all food and stay calm as Lord Hanuman used to do. He remained calm and used to jump to catch the ball like our monkey God. I don’t know but as a mother, I felt good that I was able to answer his questions from my resource.
I also sang a lullaby to him and talked about our extended family. Often I described where we are from and told him about our big family. How we all live together in an extended family enjoying aunts, uncles besides parents. One popular lullaby was Oh, moon uncle you come and play ball with my son here since he has no uncle, aunt in our migrated country to play with.
I enjoy writing this story from my memory and wish my son good luck whatever he opts to do in his life.
